6/21/2011

GREEN LANTERN
The leaden romance between unnecessarily mopey hero and yet ANOTHER pretzel stick leading lady stalls the energy of this otherwise serviceable sci-fi superhero flick. Sure, the villains are goofy, but the action’s fun and the core / corps is there. Alas, the outlook for a villainous Sinestro sequel is looking blacker…

6/14/2011

Those Darlins, SCREWS GET LOOSE
Murfreesboro, TN’s Darlin girls (and added guy) tone down the honky tonk of their first record and amp up the reverbed ‘60s girl / garage sound on this superior sophomore effort, a snappy and salacious disc that is much better suited to their piss and vinegar style.

DEVIL
Oh, what a shock. The old lady was the devil and Janekowski was the hit and run driver. M. Night Shyamalan, I know you didn’t direct this uninspiring, predictable, overblown TWILIGHT ZONE episode, but you’re still responsible. Please, I beg you: Stop making movies. Just stop. Thanks.

PORTLANDIA
Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein simultaneously celebrate and eviscerate the hippies, yuppies, vegans, musicians, artists, baristas and other denizens of Portland, OR in this smart, cool and often hysterical sketch comedy show that blends MR. SHOW, TENACIOUS D and KIDS IN THE HALL into a frothy, caffeinated potion.

BURIED
Ryan Reynolds plays an Iraqi-abducted American contractor buried alive with a really strong cell phone, lighter, knife, flask and flashlight and forced to attempt to negotiate his freedom. A serviceable, claustrophobic thriller, but how the Hell are the credits so long for a movie entirely set inside a coffin?

GENIUS, ISOLATED: THE LIFE AND ART OF ALEX TOTH by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell
The first in IDW’s trilogy chronicling the life and work of one of comics’ most important figures (and my favorite artist) tackles Toth’s beginnings through the early 60s, with beautiful reproductions and enlightening backstory. But a rather jejune design and slim selection of DC material leaves a hole unfilled.

KNIGHT AND DAY
Tom Cruise makes an ineffectual stab at a Clooneyesque mix of humor and bravado while Cameron Diaz plays gratingly perky kewpie doll in this painfully off-key action/spy flick semi-parody (overloaded with my most hated movie cliché: machine gun toting assassins who can’t hit the side of a barn!).

6/06/2011

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS
While I would’ve liked a bit more period stylization—and have some nitpicking quibbles about characters, accents, and power inconsistencies—this 1960s X-prequel (hilariously tying into the Cuban missile crisis) is an emotionally grounded, wildly satisfying (albeit X-continuity-contradicting) origin story, full of explosive action and fun nerdbits.

THE KILLING
This smart, moody, Lynch-paced adaptation of the Danish series about a teenage girl’s slaying offers tantalizing clues while emphasizing the often trivialized sense of grief and loss that death brings. A wonderfully unglamorous cast only adds to the haunting tenor (Seattle certainly makes a great setting for murder mysteries).

THE FLASH: REBIRTH
The Silver Age comics icon is back in this expository-leaden example of how the DC Universe’s cluttered, impenetrable mythology has become overpopulated with too many variations on the same characters and too much history. Ethan Van Sciver’s stiff, clunky art vainly attempts an ill-advised realism, while lacking grace and style.

6/01/2011

TOO BIG TO FAIL
Curtis Hanson’s star-studded take on the origin of TARP glosses over the cause (deregulation by the Reagan and Clinton administrations), and sputters with some awkward Economics-for-Dummies-style exposition but paints the shortsighted rapacity of the institutions who took our money and kept it for themselves with a nice, scathing black brush.

Blondie, AUTOAMERICAN
Aside from fattening his own wallet, Harold Camping’s Judgment Day prediction surely prodded sales of Blondie’s “Rapture”-including 1980 album. A sometimes-overreaching mixture of disparate musical genres suffers from Eighties overproduction, while scoring marks for avoiding formulaic repetition. The end result is a bizarre, but oddly endearing mixed bag.

PAWN STARS
While their counter-expertise and office conflict are obviously producer-manufactured, the likeable multi-generational assholes of Las Vegas’ Silver and Gold Pawn Shop and their desperately clueless and greedy customers (“It’s worth $3,000… can I have $3,000?”) make for some often fascinating, sometimes aggravating (Rick’s wheezing laugh!), completely addicting television.

AMERICAN PICKERS
More like American Douchebags. I have zero affection for these two dim, myopic antique dealers who travel the country on a relentless mission to rip off the poor and the elderly while vainly attempting to seem erudite and funny (evoking less Abbott & Costello and more antiquing Hamburglar and Grimace).

...and don't call me CHIEF!

Bitten by a radioactive silverfish at the age of five, Karl Heitmueller Jr. (aka Kalli, aka Pops Gustav) gained the power of pop culture hyper-perception.
Now as an adult, he writes, draws and cartoons about comics, movies, television, music, Superman, advertising, design, politics, religion, drinking and jerks.
Sometimes all at once.